Hello!

Dear readers (hie to all 3 of you *waves* hahaha),

I've certainly been guilty of not updating my blog for damn long .. I've been all over the place for the past 2 months.. I owe Ze Ming a post on my favourite Thai restaurant in the world.. i guess i should also post about my Malacca, Singapore, Kelantan trip .. i will do all that! Before the end of the year. Stay tuned! ^^

My Dear Child of the Enemy

I was at the gym the other day. I plugged in my earphones to the StairMaster and turned the channel to Discovery. Recently i've developed a liking towards documentaries.. guess it ties in with the sleeping early and getting old thingy.

The title of the show was My Dear Child of the Enemy. Within 15 minutes into the show, i was hooked. Transfixed on the tv in front while my legs were moving on their own. This documentary, was about Chinese foster parents who adopted Japanese children abandoned on the streets of Manchuria, China after the defeat of Japan during World War II. About a million Japanese were living in Manchuria at that time.

The documentary shone the spotlight on 4 people, Miss Li and her adopted daughter, Yuri and another pair of mother-daughter that i can't remember their names anymore. Miss Li was 1 of the 6 elders living in the China-Japan Amity House in Changchun, China. The Amity House was built by some Japanese to show their gratitude towards their foster parents. I guess.. it's just an old folks home with a different name.

Miss Li was 80 years old and lived in the Amity House with her sister and brother-in-law. Her adopted daughter, Yuri returned to Japan in the 1980s with her husband under some sort of program offered by the Japanese government. Almost all of Japan's abandoned war orphans returned to Japan during this period. Yuri promised to send for her foster mother after settling down. However, since she returned to Japan, she lived on government handouts due to difficulty in getting a job. She couldn't speak nor write in Japanese. Her life in Japan, in her own words, was very lonely.. with her husband being her only friend. Back in China, her foster mother was getting very sick.. to the point she couldn't ingest any solid food. Her mother begged her to go back and visit her in China to fulfill her dying wish. Yuri used up all her savings and even had to borrow money to go visit her dying mother. She could only be in China for 10 days .. but this fact was unknown to her foster mother..

Back in China, she wanted to bring her mother to the hospital, but again, she was penniless. She tried to ask from her cousins there but they said she should have tried harder instead of borrowing money from people all the time. Miss Li, who was sitting on her bed listening to their conversation, cried silently. On the last day of her visit, Yuri made some dumplings for her mother.. it was her favourite. Even though Miss Li had been eating nothing but porridge for the past few weeks, she looked really happy and take in the dumplings slowly. It was at this time that Yuri had to break the news to her foster mother that she had to return to Japan.. the dinner ended in tears, again.

Yuri packed all her belongings and said goodbye to Miss Li.

"Please come back soon.. having you by my side is the only wish i have now..."

She merely nodded, knowing this could be the last time they will ever meet in this lifetime. Then, she left. The camera continued to linger on Miss Li's face, capturing the unspeakable sorrow and grief etched on her wrinkled face .. and the silent tears on her face matched those on mine.

The 2nd story was also about a Chinese foster mother and her Japanese adopted daughter. The difference lies in this Japanese adopted daughter chose to stay in China instead of returning to Japan, her ancestral land. However, it was her son, an engineer, who decided that migrating to Japan would bring them a better future.. so the whole family, including the old Chinese woman all prepared to venture into the unknown, leaving their whole lives behind..

Towards the end, i keep hoping they would portray some sort of happy ending to both the stories. Maybe some kind people heard of Miss Li's plight and raised a fund for Yuri to stay with her until her last breath.. maybe they will show footage of the other Chinese foster mother adapting well in Japan... maybe.. maybe... but they didn't. The documentary ended with a group shot of the remaining 6 residents of the China-Japan Amity House.. still waiting for their foster children's homecoming.

I was touched by the documentary so much, it haunted me for a few days. I googled it up, but found no further information on the documentary other than it won the NHK Japan Grand Prix Prize in 2005. I wished that i could read about the whereabouts of Miss Li, Yuri and the other pair, i wished that i could read that they live happily ever after .. but i didn't. I guess real life doesn't work in that way..

I haven't prayed to God for a long time. But that night, i prayed hard to God that Miss Li would get her dying wish and wouldn't die as a lonely old woman.

It Ended =(

Sigh. Damn long never post anything here. I'm slightly depressed now. Sigh. Because my favourite drama Moonlight Resonance has ended !! I got nothing to look forward to watch anymore.. =(

from wikipedia, my new best friend :)

It was a very nice show, with just the right kind of drama to keep me hooked through the entire 40 episodes! I never thought I would be hooked to ANY formulaic tvb drama.. which more often than not, always, always involve a girl meets boy.. girl encounter some sort of crisis.. boy comes to the rescue.. and you know how the story will end, won't you? At least i think i do.

Hmm.. after watching Heart of Greed and Moonlight Resonance almost back-to-back, i've concluded that Moonlight Resonance is scripted in a directly opposite way from Heart of Greed in that the main characters were living happily before tragedy strikes, while in Moonlight Resonance, things started badly but good triumphs over evil in the end~haha. Everyone should really just watch both of these dramas!!! Ya ok i know i'm lame like that.. peace out.

Divided We Fall

So sorry for not continuing my Hong Kong Trip Part 2 3 4 and etc.. i've been busy. And i've been sick.. sniff. Barely recovered now but there's just something that i feel like i must get it off my chest.

I was just reading our former prime minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir's blog, and his views on the current hoo-haa about the stupid, ignorant Ahmad Ismail who called Malaysian Chinese 'pendatang' (now most newspapers are using the term squatters) who don't deserve to have equal rights in this country. First, the esteemed Tun said it was a disgrace for Najib to apologise to the non-Malays like they 're so scared of us. Subsequently, he wrote another post and said his true intention was to magnify the fact that Najib, as the 2nd highest ranked political leader in the country should not have apologised over a trivial matter said by 1 small timer, instead the culprit should tender the apology himself. Fine. Fair enough.

What saddens me most were the comments posted in response to his article. There were MANY people who actually thought that Najib shouldn't apologise at all. He shouldn't have bowed down to the pressure from the non-Malays at all. In their deluded minds, they actually thought he brought shame to the Malay people. OMG. Can you believe this? I mean. First of all, how would you feel if you were called a 'squatter' in the country that you were born and grew up in? A squatter man.

Secondly, everyone is only demanding an apology from the stupid fella himself, nobody is saying that the Malay community should be punished or something. Geez. Worst of all, i don't understand why all those people keep on harping on the issues that the Malays are losing their country to the immigrants, the non-Malays are taking away the special privileges accorded the the sons of the Earth, Islam is being ridiculed, bla bla bla. Why are all these issues brought up just because we demand an apology over an insensitive comment uttered by an idiot? I really don't see the connection.

You grew up singing 'Negaraku' with all those other different coloured people all through primary school and secondary school. You defended Malaysia when everyone else was condemning it saying the non-Malays were treated as 2nd class citizens, everything is bad, bla bla bla, better go to Singapore lar. You were horrified when a fellow Chinese friend said that our forefathers should have stayed in China instead of coming over to Malaya. Your best friend in Standard 3 was a Malay girl, who was with you on your first cinema outing, chaperoned by her mom. You actually BELIEVED in Malaysia. You actually believed that despite all the shortcomings and bad apples, no matter what, this is still your homeland. Where you belong.

Or maybe that was just me.

Hong Kong Day 1 Part 2

Ok! I'm back to continue my unfinished task. Mm.. where was I? Oh.. so after about 1 hour or so, can't remember how long lar, we reached Metropark Hotel, Mongkok. It looked pretty ok, nothing fancy but not too seedy either.

Anyway, i was very surprised to see my HK friend, Chun Him waiting for me at the lobby! I didn't expect him to be there coz i only vaguely told him i'll reach HK about 9 pm, and he's been waiting for me there since that time~ So nice of him. Luckily he brought a friend to talk to him la.. if im not mistaken that time already 11pm. After we've thrown our luggage in the room, we followed him to the MRT station to get our most useful companion during the HK trip - the Octopus card. This card can be used everywhere, even in 7-11!

After getting that, he brought us to eat supper near his house in Sha Tin. We were really fortunate to have him as our temporary guide, because, if not, we would not be able to board the famous double decker and also minibus en route to his house! The minibus is quite canggih one, got a speedometer displayed on top for all the passengers to see how fast the bus is going. Very gooddd. The public transportation system in HK is really very advanced and convenient.

Guess what we ate for supper? Went to a nondescript tong sui shop and of all things, THEY ordered a durian sai mai lou or something like that!!! I forgot what's it called .. of course i didn't touch it. I hate durians. The other stuff was pretty ok lar.. nothing special.

we had our supper here

nice tong sui! i believe the durian one is not shown here

smile! :)

After that we adjourned to the 7-Eleven next door to buy some breakfast, and also the ever-famous Vitamilk! Got a lot of flavours one wor.. even got red bean flavour.. which is A-meng's favourite. Too bad i forgot to take a picture of that...

It's time to bid goodbye to my Chun Him's friend, whose name i can't recall, as he got to work tomorrow so he ciao home first. My poor HK friend had to accompany us back to our hotel before going back home himself. And that marks the end of Day 1! Haha. 4 more days to go!

Hong Kong Day 1 (sometime in May 2007)

Ok! I've had a somewhat bad day at work (yesterday), dealing with people (not from my office) that nearly made me lose my temper, and professionalisme. Luckily i didn't (i think). Who cares.

Anyway, to make myself happier, i've decided to write down my Hong Kong trip last year because it was just so "memorable".. hahaha. Just thinking about it is making me laugh already. I want to jot this down so that i can always come back here to read about it whenever i need to be happy again.. yeay!

The three of us, A-meng, Grace and myself met up at KLIA before boarding a Cathay Pacific flight to Chek Lap Kok Kei Cheong hehe (Chek Lap Kok Airport). We took a late flight and reached HK around 9pm++ i think. We were very excited on the plane, being on a vacation with friends to go so far for the first time, eating plane food for the first time that we can't stop talking and taking pictures. I vaguely remembered the seats were not THAT comfortable; marginally better than AirAsia lar.. at least it's reclinable :)

Excited looks hehe

Mm.. what else.. oo.. i also remembered being engrossed in a movie about a controlling mother and her three daughters.. Mandy Moore is one of the daughters.. there were 2 guys vying for her.. as usual.. bla bla.. that's all i can remember about the movie. The entire trip took about 2 hours.. after we landed, there were some tour guide waiting for us and guiding us to the bus that will take us to our hotel!

Jeng jeng jeng.. After a short while.. we boarded the bus and were finally on our way to Mongkok, where our hotel is located. From the airport, the first sight that got us excited was... the HK red cabbie! Haha.. it looked exactly like how we always see in the HK movies.. HK is indeed a very strange place. It is so distant, yet so familiar at the same time. We've heard of Central, Mongkok, HK Island, Sha Tin, Kowloon and etc even though we've never set foot here before this trip. Thanks to all the TVB dramas that were fed to us throughout our growing years.

Ok, i will stop here because i'm getting tired. Blogging is actually quite tiring. Don't worry Shin Yin, i will make sure to blog about the WHOLE trip .. no matter how long it takes. Hehe.. baibai.

Heart of Greed

I've not been updating as frequently as i should due to few reasons. Mainly coz i'm lazy and got nothing interesting to write about. Haha. Oh well. Anyway, i'm sure ppl who got astro at home must've heard about the hoo-ha that is the TVB new series, Heart of Greed 2(HoG2), which is only available on Astro On Demand. I think my uncle has it but i seldom watch tv at home (which is my uncle's house at the moment).

There is something very strange with me. I dunno y i always watch outdated movies/series. i.e after everyone else has watched it. I have a Lee Hom's concert dvd that has been sitting on my bookshelf for .. 2 years! And i still haven't watch it! Original summore leh. And Lost Season 1.. House Season 1.. something tells me i'll never start on those series. Anyway, that explains y now only im watching the Heart of Greed 1(HoG1) series which was really big last year, while everyone else already watching the sequel la! Duh. Anyway, you ppl who read my blog, especially Shin Yin who always complain that she's bored should watch this series! It's pretty entertaining. This coming from someone who doesn't really like to watch TVB series (coz i can always predict how the story will end after watching the first episode. Really one).

There's this girl in it, Linda Chung, whom i think looks really sweet and pretty, which is kinda refreshing. I'd would put up her picture here but a bit mah fan lar have to search for it and upload and bla bla. Anyway, i'm already bertungkus-lumus trying to finish the HoG1 so that i can start on HoG2.. if only i know where to download it online.. -_-